Star Trek: The Tour: The Review
Alright, alright, alright. I had a pretty terrible experience at Star Trek:The Tour. I will spare you the beaming, the boldly going, the warping, the whatever. My bad experience begins by being warned against anything more powerful than an iPhone to snap up photo opportunities. So bring your own camera if you boldly go, because once you arrive, you are issued your very own USS Enterprise NCC-1701 Card to interact with various photo-ops. More about that.
Before I teabag these Ferengi, let me qualify one thing: the staff was nice. Although STAR TREK: THE TOUR is held until March 2nd, 2008, the hard-working red shirts in the exhibition hall treat it like it opened yesterday. Not sure how many staff members are going with the Tour when it wraps and travels the world, but it ain’t easy for a guy to suspend his disbelief. A more hirsute, knuckle-dragging bunch might have grown surly over the ubiquitous Vulcan salutes, the “Live Long and Prosper” shout-outs, the whole thing.
So let me walk you through the tour. I recommend $6 for “a thing with buttons on it that explains what you might encounter”, which you can rent upon arrival. It is the only money worth spending here.
There are many things to see, many life-sized statues of beloved STAR TREK characters and monsters, future history lessons, costumes, props and trivia machines. You can admire detailed star maps of every planet in the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta Quadrants that was relevant to any of the shows and movies. There are Klingon thrones and tribbles and Andorian heads and a Rosetta stone at the entrance written in English and in two languages that only Trekkers can identify.
Our first stop was a kind of glorified photo booth to play various fan roles against original series footage, and we seized upon that. First, you give the attendant your card and they swipe it — more about that very soon. Then you choose one of three scripts. My dear Arabian Princess chose the Klingon one and I begged her to do the whole thing in Arabic but she didn’t. OK, it was a fun gimmick to read off the teleprompter and do the pratfall when the ship gets hit, yadda yadda, with the benefit of a chroma-keyed Klingon battle cruiser. But you CAN’T view back your performance! No, you can’t! You are welcome to purchase an MPEG of it, burned to a DVD, for $39.99! That aforementioned Star Trek Card? It stores the handle of all your fan film attempts at the Trek Store. So we roll in at the store and ask to watch the video and instead are shown a measly twenty second sans audio preview at one of the sales stations. And it was the worst, most lame twenty seconds in the script. Pass.
I sought out the original enterprise bridge for a chance to sit in the original Captain’s chair (one of the original three: the first is in the Smithsonian and the second was sold to the Vegas STAR TREK EXPERIENCE for millions of credits). Post swiping of card, I did the Kirk hand-to-chin pose while my Lebanese communications officer dialed up her friends in Jordan using the ship-to-surface circuit. And there it was, my chance to look at that main viewing screen from the Captain’s POV in his original rocking chair on the original set of the Enterprise Bridge. And a little pocket of personal subspace came full circle. The television was finally watching me.
To wit, the original bridge is a very cramped place to have phaser fights and lose it. Did you ever watch the show? I’m surprised more red shirts didn’t split their heads open on the railing. But what really split my head open was $24.99 for one 8×10 of that experience, with superimposed original crew members in the composite. And that I couldn’t use my own camera in there. Pass.
Other Swipe-card access includes Picard’s chair on the NEXT GEN bridge, the transporter room, the Engineering stations on the Enterprise D, and the armory on the Enterprise NX (mentioned in the brochure but nowhere to be found). The transporter room pic is one of those “lenticular photos” where tilting the image causes you to beam off the pad. Only $24.99 per. Pass.
Long Beach is loaded to the gills with lost people, and some of them want to drain you of your currency, harvest your phone number, and/or convert you to some cult while you’re still weak from seeing for the first time that the phasers and tricorders are just toys up close. And these people, sadly, have decided that the dome next to the Queen Mary is an excellent place to get this pocket-fleecing business accomplished among the converted and the faithful. And this conventioneer attitude on behalf of the Tour absolutely ruined it for me. I’m not spending $125 on DVDs of something I can put together in iPhoto.
Towards the back of the exhibition hall is a six minute movie in some kind of state-of-the-art Encounter Theater. Wil Wheaton and Tim Russ are trapped in a poorly-written simulation that breaks continuity with the established history of the characters they played. I’m glad my heart isn’t where my liver is, or I would have passed out from the illogic of spending millions on a tribute film that pays no attention to core audience. Pass.
In the back are two full-motion, shuttlecraft-looking show-based flight simulators that absolutely suck. It’s better to wait in line for the ones that spin around 360 degrees and we didn’t. Ever done STAR TOURS at Disneyland? Worse. PASS.
There’s one worthy unmolested moment: the Guardian of Forever set. I took this shitty iPhoto to remember the exact moment I jumped through it.
STAR TREK: THE TOUR
Queen Mary Dome, Long Beach
Ends this Sunday, March 2
Tickets and Information
That last photo looks a hell of a lot like the Donut Hole in La Puente. Donut dvds for $24.99 perchance?
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI had a pretty terrible experience at Star Trek:The Tour. I will spare you the beaming, the boldly going, the warping, the whatever. My bad experience begins by being warned against anything more powerful than an iPhone to snap up photo … [...]
A “lenticular photo” that shifts the donut hole to better resemble the Death Star! $39.99!
Thanx, MFV, for your acerbic review of Star Trek: The Tour.
I’ll now pass on visiting that fiasco at Long Beach and instead spend $29.99 on some DVD’s of my favorite Star Trek episodes.
Scratch that $29.99 and make it $39.99!! I want the DVD of the footage you and your Arabian Princess made with the Klingon.
Man. They are doing a terrible job of making money there. Yeah: the way to make me shell out gobs of dollars is by showing me a few seconds of myself without sound and then laughing maniacally and demanding cash for the rest. And I bet that that would really give me that warm fuzzy feeling of getting good value for my dollar there, so I would really want to buy more of what they have to offer. Excellent marketing strategies all round. You just know that the only marketing effort they put into this was to spend five seconds going “HA ha ha ha ha! Trekkies will buy anything! HA HA HA HA HA!” and then high-fiving and walking away….
The glass-encased hands-liberated mannequin is killing me.
You missed out on those rides that flipped 360 degrees. I went on a Sunday afternoon and there was barely anyone there.
That’s what makes me so mad, Oakling! I think most Trekkies passed on the merc. Most of them were like, omg wtf $39.99 for an MPEG that I’m not going to be able to preview? What’s the point of doing it over and over if I can’t see how it came out!
And someone, in fairness, might have saluted the composers of the series soundtracks. I’d produce the score of “The Paradise Syndrome” in the style of George Balanchine if I had the time and the energy.
You must have gotten up on the wrong side of the universe. I went opening weekend and had a blast. The staff was awesome. I took a bunch of pictures on the both bridges – so I don’t know what you’re talking about. All in all, I took 160 photos. Six of me beaming in and out of eternity. Five of each of the bridge. In fact, one of the staff turned on the red alert light and even used my camera to snap several shots. I kept the best. Seeing William Shatner was wonderful. Meeting some of the best writers of Star Trek scripts, book and websites was a treat. Everything was great and worth every penny I spent.
If it comes to a city near you, you ought to forget this guy and go. Or, you’ll miss out on a great opportunity.
Barbara, by “every penny you spent”, did you mean the price of admission? Obviously you didn’t fall prey to the various photo traps. And I am glad you got a chance to use a real camera. I was warned off of that. Period. Next universe…
OMG !!! Is the author a fan??? I found his review to be slanted.
Anyone know where the Tour is now?
I went to see it in June and it was gone and there wea and still is as of this date no info on the ST site about it closing.
I spoke to entertainment director of Queen Mary, who was most poliet, she conveyed it had moved to San Diego.
I cannot find anything about this anywhere… help.. leave message here
Thanks and Live Long and Prosper
I lucked out. I went in San Diego on a weekday, where the employees did not even show up. Because there was not anyone there to take my picture, they let us use our digital cameras as much as we wanted.
Again the ST marketing maching screws its customers, fails to update the website telling people what happened. The original operation got shut down because people obviously refused to be screwed over by buying into the photo op traps. They couldn’t pay their bills and got sold off to another company who split up the exhibit into 2 parts around the country.
My experience started badly at the deeetroit exhibit, and will end hopefully better at the philly one after it moves there from ariz next month. I agree mostly with everything in the article, and have to add, that it’s an insult to discerning fans that they can’t even screen accurately REcreate this isht as it was seen on TV. White warp core? WTF man, it’s BLUE!! Halfazz job just like the cheap color inaccurate playmates toys they made. It even states on the placards, these are reproductions of the original prop. Yet they tell you and would have you believe these are the ORIGINAL set constructions, ala, “no photos” because it’s the real deal. IT’S NOT. They’re poorly redone inaccurate mockups. Everyone knows they demolish the sets after filming the series wraps up. Only thing saved is the props, and those are locked away at paramount or sold at christies like picards flute(which they have sitting on his desk, ala REproduction magic).
Another thing is an employee at the detroit one told me they even still have unpacked boxes sitting in the basement because there wasn’t enough room to dedicate fully to the exhibit. WTF!! You’re telling me I got ripped off $18 for half a show?? What kind of BS is this.
Thanks for the words, true trek fan. RE: Unpacked boxes, if they’re going to show us a little ship in the bottle convention experience, they could have at least unbuckled the Heisenberg compensators.